2010 La Serre

Deeper in colour than the 2009, and the whole structure of the wine is younger and will benefit from another few years in bottle. Olives, spiced plum, touches of orange peel and chocolate shavings, still very young, powerful, dominated by red fruits, raspberry and blackberry, takes its time before the salinity and mouthwatering finish arrives. A gorgeous wine with clear mint leaf on the finish, real complexity of the aromatics also, takes its time to show off, so give it time in the glass. 50% new oak. Yields back to relatively normal at 45hl/h (in fact this is generous here, 40-43hl is more typical because of the limestone soils with just 30cm of topsoil in many parts). If you are going to drink this soon give it plenty of time in a carafe to allow the generosity to show itself.

Readers looking for a wine for immediate gratification, filled with plump, fat, fleshy black cherry and black currant fruit and loamy soil notes as well as hints of balsam wood and underbrush should check out this medium to full-bodied, seductive wine, which has more power and density than it normally possesses. Drink it over the next 10-15 years.

Dark purplish crimson. Very florally perfumed. Relatively lightweight but very suave. A little sweet, even slightly inky, on the finish. Very suave and well mannered. Just a slightly vegetal hint. (JR)